


I'd Never Let You Go

by SingingInTheRaiin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abuse, Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe, Domestic Violence, Gray Tom Riddle, Harry Potter is a Horcrux, M/M, Mentions of homophobia, Possessive Tom, Protective Tom, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2020-01-05 22:00:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18374921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingingInTheRaiin/pseuds/SingingInTheRaiin
Summary: When Harry shows up with a mysterious bruise on his face, it's up to Tom to figure out who did it, and put a swift end to it.





	I'd Never Let You Go

He had made a poor job of hiding the damage to his face, and Tom was giving him a suspicious look. “Really? You’re just fine, even though there’s a giant bruise on your eye?”

Harry reached up to gingerly prod at the bruise, and when he pulled his hand away, he could see the faint traces of coverup makeup on his fingertips. Apparently he hadn’t applied nearly enough, but he could still salvage this situation, hopefully. “It’s nothing, Tom, honest. I just slipped in the bath and hit the faucet.”

When Tom suddenly reached out, Harry couldn’t help the way he started to flinch back, but then forced himself to stand strong. This was just Tom he was talking about. Well, to be fair, Harry did have plenty of reason to distrust the older boy. And he knew that there were many other students who were just a bit afraid of Tom. But Harry was pretty confident that Tom would never do anything to hurt him.

Instead on commenting on Harry’s reaction, Tom just continued with what he was doing, and gently took hold of Harry’s chin so that he could turn his face to the side and get a closer look at the bruise. “Now be a good boy and tell me what really happened,” he commanded.

Harry stayed perfectly still, finding the warmth of Tom’s hand on his face to be somewhat comforting. “I did tell you. Now please just leave it alone.”

Tom gave Harry an incredulous look as he took a small step back. “You’re joking, right? Surely you don’t think that I would just stand back and let anyone hurt you. You’re mine, Harry.”

Harry couldn’t help the shiver that ran down his spine at those words, even though he knew that that wasn’t how Tom meant them. Tom thought Harry belonged to him because he was one of his horcruxes, and had no interest in Harry for any reason besides that. “Maybe try spelling the baths to be less dangerous, then. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get to class.” He could feel Tom’s eyes burning into him as he hurried down the corridor, and wondered for a moment if it would be better to just tell Tom everything. But no, he couldn’t do that. No matter what promises Tom may have made, Harry could believe all too easily that the older boy wouldn’t hesitate to commit murder, and Harry couldn’t let that blood be on his hands.

Besides, it’s not like Harry didn’t deserve what was happening to him, so it wasn’t really much of a problem anyways, was it?

,,,

Tom watched Harry very closely over the next few days. This wasn’t the first time the Gryffindor had showed up with mysterious bruises, and Tom had accepted the lame excuses before, but it was just too difficult to believe that even Harry could be clumsy enough to get hurt right in a prime punching spot. 

No matter what was going on, Tom was quite determined to get to the bottom of it. Keeping Harry alive was of great interest to him, considering the deal that they had made. The terms were simple enough- Tom got to travel to the future using a magic he still didn’t understand, and would stay to live there so that Harry could keep an eye on him. He would not kill any more people, but to assuage his fears of dying, he could create one single horcrux based on the kills he’d already made. 

Tom wasn’t sure what exactly had happened, but when he was ready to perform the ritual to stow a piece of his soul into that fancy goblet, something had gotten messed up. Harry had been in the room at the time, claiming that he needed to make sure Tom didn’t do anything funny, but then the piece of his soul had somehow gotten stuck to Harry instead.

In all of his research, Tom had never heard of a human horcrux before, but he had to admit that if part of his soul was going to be stuck with a person for eternity, at least it was a cute one. 

After Tom had finished making his deal with Harry, Harry said that the future had changed. He said that all of the things around them were not the way that they’d been the day before, but there was no one else in the world who knew it besides the two of them, and Tom barely even knew anything about what the future had been like before it had changed, so most of that knowledge was with Harry alone.

That first day, when they’d gone to Harry’s room to talk more, Harry had spotted a letter from his parents on his bed, already opened. He’d pulled it out to read again, and then started sobbing loudly before pulling Tom into a hug and kissing him on the cheek, and then running off. Tom still wasn’t entirely sure what that was about, but he could make a few educated guesses.

So Harry was Tom’s only link to immortality, and Tom wasn’t going to let that go to waste. He was already far enough ahead in all of his classes that he had no problem with skipping them to make it easier to follow Harry around, and he waited patiently for some hint about what had happened to Harry.

It was on the third day of following Harry around when the younger boy did something different than usual. He veered away from the crowded main corridor, and into a small classroom. It was empty, and Tom furrowed his eyebrows as he tried to figure out why Harry was in there. He cast a quick spell to keep himself hidden as he slipped inside, and less than a minute later, another student was arriving.

Based on her robes, she was a Ravenclaw, and Tom couldn’t help noticing that even by this decade’s standards, she had way too much makeup caked on her face. She gave Harry a long look. “You sure, hon? You know, if you’re looking for a makeover, I’m sure that there are plenty of girls who’d love to help you. We do love our gays around here.”

Tom frowned. He wasn’t sure if she was just making things up, or if Harry was actually gay but had never mentioned anything about it before. But he continued to silently watch the scene, wanting to get a better understanding of everything that was going on. Harry shook his head. “I’m good.” Then he reached into his pocket to pull out a few coins, and dropped them into the girl’s waiting palm. In exchange, she gave him a small velvet bag that was tied shut. “I’ll let you know when I need more.”

Was that a drug deal he’d just watched? Was Harry on drugs? If he was, then that was absolutely unacceptable, since Tom needed his horcrux to be in peak shape. But when Harry opened the bag and tipped its contents out, there was just a small plastic case and a brush. Harry popped open the top, revealing what looked like foundation. As in the makeup. 

Harry patted a bit around his eye, and then put the makeup back into the bag to stow in his school bag. So Harry had some kind of secret makeup buying operation going on, presumably to cover up bruises? How many had Tom missed? How long had this been going on? And most important- who was responsible for this in the first place?

He could have stepped out of the shadows then and demand that Harry tell him what was going on, but he had the feeling that that wouldn’t be a very effective strategy, and would only make the boy close up and get defensive. So instead, he continued to follow Harry around.

At the end of the day, after all the classes were over, but before it was time for dinner, Harry went to a different classroom, though this one already had a person standing in it. He was tall, and wearing Gryffindor robes. “You’re late!” he barked to Harry. “I told you to be here twenty minutes ago! If we’re caught, and get in trouble for using this room, then you’re in so much trouble!”

Harry frowned, and looked down at the ground. “Sorry,” he muttered in a quiet voice. “McGonagall stopped me to talk, and-” 

The other boy slapped Harry across the face. “Shut up! Enough with your sorry excuses!”

Tom already knew for a fact that it was true that McGonagall had pulled Harry aside to chat with her, though Tom had wisely hung back to avoid being detected. But either way, there was absolutely no excuse for hitting Harry, and Tom shot several hexes at the boy. Harry whipped around to see where the spells had been cast from, and his eyes widened when he spotted Tom. “What are you doing?”

Tom shrugged. “I told you before, you’re mine. And if you think that I would ever let anything harmful happen to anything of mine, then clearly you don’t know me very well at all. Now, well we wait for this oaf to get up, why don’t you tell me who he is and what his business with you is.”

Harry’s face flushed a light pink, and Tom had to remind himself at his anger towards the attacker to stop himself from getting too distracted. “We’re uh, we’re dating.” Harry’s voice came out as barely loud enough to be audible.

A feeling of hurt instantly shot through Tom’s chest, and he found himself scowling and crossing his arms over his chest before he could even think about it. “I thought we were friends, Harry. And you never even wanted to tell me that you’re with someone?” He wouldn’t deny that there was some jealousy and possessiveness in there as well, but mostly he was hurt by the idea that Harry wouldn’t even tell him about something so important. Maybe if he had, Tom would have been able to separate him from this douchebag a lot sooner.

Harry reached up to scratch at the back of his neck, clearly feeling very awkward. “You’re from the forties. I thought that maybe you wouldn’t…” he trailed off, but Tom got the gist of it.

He clenched his jaw tightly. “You thought I’d care if you wanted to date a boy? The only thing I care about is that you’re safe and happy, neither of which you seem to be in this relationship.”

Then the other guy finally got back up to his feet, and was glaring harshly at Tom. “Stay the hell out of this, man. It’s got nothing to do with you.”

Tom flashed the boy a grin that had sent stronger men running before. “Oh, that’s where you’re wrong. This has everything to do with me. You’re the one who should have known better than to get involved.”

,,,

Harry kept glancing up at Tom as they walked around the outer edge of the Hogwarts’ border. He knew that it would make sense to be afraid of Tom after witnessing what he did to Randall. But it had been done to protect Harry, which sent an inappropriate fluttering through his stomach.

Then Tom came to an abrupt halt, and Harry stopped and took a couple of steps backwards so that he’d be even with Tom again. Tom moved so that he was facing Harry, looking at him in that intense way of his. “Why were you with that jerk?”

Harry shrugged, suddenly feeling very awkward. How was he supposed to explain all of his feelings to Tom without sounding absolutely pathetic? But it was clear that Tom wasn’t going to just let this go, so Harry heaved out a deep sigh, and then hesitantly started talking. “He said that he liked me. I know that sounds dumb, but I- well, before you came here and everything changed, everybody knew me, whether they liked me or not. And I had more than my share of admirers. So to look around and suddenly realize that I was nobody…” he reached up to brush his fingers against the spot on his forehead where a scar had been the first time they’d met. There was no scar there now. “So somebody actually liked me, and I knew for sure that it couldn’t be because of my fame because I didn’t have any. And at first he was the perfect gentleman. He was very sweet and considerate. I don’t even remember what it was that set him off the first time, but I did something wrong, and suddenly he was so angry, but then he apologized, and I thought that…”

He trailed off again, and looked at Tom pleadingly. As much as he’d disliked the boy upon their first meeting, if only because he knew what Tom could possibly grow up to become, he’d eventually grown to really care about Tom, and put a lot of stock in his opinion. He didn’t want Tom to realize how weak and foolish he was.

Tom let out a soft sigh, and then pulled Harry into a hug. “You idiot. You didn’t do anything wrong. That guy was the dick. I wish that you’d come to me so that I could have done something about it sooner, but I’m just glad that you’re away from that guy now. He can’t hurt you anymore, because I refuse to let him.”

Harry looked up at Tom, and he knew that the confusion had to be evident on his face. “Why do you even care? Now that I’m your horcrux, I’m a lot more sturdy than I used to be, and even if you did nothing, I’d still be just fine, and I’d continue to do my job of keeping you alive.”

Tom ruffled Harry’s hair, and spoke with a rare fondness in his voice. “I already told you, Harry. You’re mine. And I take care of what’s mine.” Then he pressed a light kiss on the top of Harry’s head, making Harry’s face turn bright pink. “Now let’s get going so we can finish our homework before dinner.” He held out his hand, and there was only a moment of hesitation before Harry accepted it, and followed Tom back to the castle. There was a big grin on his face as he walked, and he was glad to have Tom Riddle in his life.


End file.
